Four skills you need to have to improve your cybersecurity expertise

“Acquiring a global view of cybersecurity is essential for managers and executives,” UPM’s European Faculty Lead, Víctor Villagrá, says.

There is a cybersecurity skills gap, and EIT Digital is going to help bridging it. In the current hyper-connected society, the separation between the physical and the digital realms, is no longer a given.

The constant interaction of atoms and bits makes life easier and more efficient for business and citizens; at the same time, however, it also increases their vulnerability, as many of them had the misfortune to discover.

Identity thefts, ransomware, DDoS attacks, data breaches, are no longer just words for insiders, but have often become stuff of mainstream headlines.

A correct training in cybersecurity is therefore a key component for being able to withstand today’s challenges. Starting with an adequate awareness for all citizens, including specific training for organization employees, and specialized cybersecurity training in a technical and in an organizational way for executives that need to have a holistic view of the problem and solutions.

“Acquiring a global view of cybersecurity is essential for managers and executives. This knowledge should include 4 essential areas: cybersecurity governance and management, knowing your enemy, deploying a cybersecurity policy and setting up cybersecurity operations,” UPM’s European Faculty Lead, Víctor Villagrá, says.

On the governance and management side, it’s important for professionals to be aware of strategy and policy issues, as well as law compliance and regulatory issues to be deployed in an organization's cybersecurity policy.

It’s also instrumental that they are familiar with the threats and techniques used by the attackers, both in a human and a technological way. Knowledge of the enemy and of policy issues should provide the basis for deploying a real and strong cybersecurity policy, one that would include not only the usual security services for classical IT environments, but also those new environments where the threats are establishing now, such as digital industry, IoT, cloud platforms.

Last, but not least, being able to launch a cybersecurity operation, getting real-time security information from all the systems, and performing threat hunting techniques in order to identify possible issues should be a no-brainer for any organization.

Unfortunately, cybersecurity skills shortage is a real issue. It has been predicted that there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions worldwide by 2021*.

To help address this issue, EIT Digital in collaboration with UC Berkeley is launching the Cybersecurity 360 programme for Professionals which will rely on experts from Europe and the U.S. to provide cutting-edge information on the topic through a two-week face-to-face professional training for industry leaders, including specific sessions for all the aspects identified previously.

The programme is split into two modules: the first one takes place on October 1-5 in Berkeley (U.S.), followed by a second week on October 15-19 in Munich (Germany). Participants can choose to register for one or both weeks.